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Reflective Metering - Cheap & Easy?

  • 07-02-2011 11:45am
    #1
    PopeBuckfastXVI
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,155 ✭✭✭


    Hi All,

    I have need of a meter to do reflective metering. Can anyone recommend something cheap and easy to do this? It's for landscapes, so I presume reflective is better than incident (i.e. to take readings from the sky, water, land etc), am open to correction on that though. I'd be very happy with some sort of little analogue device, so long as it worked. Save me carrying round a second camera, just to meter!

    Thanks in advance!


Comments

  • #2
    DaireQuinlan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,713 ✭✭✭DaireQuinlan


    PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »
    Hi All,

    I have need of a meter to do reflective metering. Can anyone recommend something cheap and easy to do this? It's for landscapes, so I presume reflective is better than incident (i.e. to take readings from the sky, water, land etc), am open to correction on that though. I'd be very happy with some sort of little analogue device, so long as it worked. Save me carrying round a second camera, just to meter!

    Thanks in advance!

    Trawl through EBay for old analogue meters. KH was looking for one recently, don't know if he picked one up. I have an old jessops job, needle + dials job, match up on the EV given by the needle with the dials to get shutterspeed/aperture combinations. It's pretty small and light. I also have a Sekonic L-408 which has spot metering, flash metering, a whole pile of features to store and compare various readings etc etc. It's a bit larger and bulkier. For incident readings they tend to be more or less in agreement so if I'm just wandering around with print film loaded I'm inclined to take the jessops with me, otherwise the sekonic.

    If you're looking through EBay avoid anything with selenium meters, chances are they're old and fried. I've got a couple of old cameras with selenium meters, none of which work. Also watch out you don't buy something that needs the curse of old camera gear, the mercury battery. Little bit of research is generally your friend in these cases.

    In general I'd incident meter everything, just making sure I'm sitting in the same light as whatever it is I'm shooting, but I'm lazy that way. In general it'd be a better job than reflective metering, with meters you can't really be too sure what's contributing to the reading, but nowhere near as discerning as a spot meter in the right hands. That's a whole different ball game though. Time to pick up a copy of 'The Negative' once you start going down that route :)


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